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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Bond rule changes for Tourist Visas. For those who are unaware, there is something called an Immigration Bond where basically they will issue a Visa if you pony up capital and basically not unlike a bail bondsman, basically you put the money with them, they give you the Visa, and so long as you come back - basically leave the United States - they will refund the bond; that's basically how it works. That said, things are changing with regard to this especially as it pertains particularly to Cambodia.

To be clear, as of now, nothing with regard to the process of seeking or adjudicating a Tourist Visa has changed with respect to Thailand, but as we do cover things in Southeast Asia, I thought this was pertinent. This is coming from Reuters, that is reuters.com, the article is titled: US to require $15,000 bond to Visa recipients from 12 more countries. "President Donald Trump's Administration will require citizens from 50 countries to post bonds of $15,000 to apply for US entry, a State Department Official said on Wednesday. The Official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 12 countries are being added to a list that already includes 38 other nations, largely in Africa. The expanded Visa Bond program, which requires those foreign nationals to pay $15,000 for a B1 or B2 Visa for business and tourism, goes into effect on April 2. The aim is to prevent visitors from overstaying their visas, the Official said. The new nations included in the Visa Bond program are Cambodia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Granada, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, and Tunisia." Quoting further: "The Official said Bonds will be returned to Visa recipients who return home in compliance with the terms of the Visa and the Bond, or do not travel in the first place." Quoting further: "Since taking office last January, Trump, a Republican, has pursued a hardline Immigration Policy, including an aggressive deportation drive, revocations of visas and green cards, and screens of social media posts and past speeches of immigrants."

I don't think I would say it's exactly fair to say that Trump has taken a hard line; I think they have just been enforcing Immigration law, and I've done videos on that in the past with regard to my issues with the open border and why we needed to do something about that; I was glad to see that Trump did that. 

That said, this Visa Bond thing, I can kind of understand the underlying thinking behind it. The other thing to bear in mind with regard to Tourist Visas is what is called Section 214b of the Immigration and Nationality Act which requires that the adjudicating Consular Officer makes a determination that the applicant has both strong ties to their home country and weak ties to the United States. The Visa Bond to my thinking would go some way in ameliorating the issue of weak ties to the United States, because again, by placing the Bond down, it would show an incentive to return back to one's home country. That said, do not presume that just because you have $15,000 and you can put it into a bank account or put it on a Bond basically, does not necessarily mean the Visa is a foregone conclusion because of 214b specifically. 214b is a rather difficult thing to overcome; I've done many videos in the past on this.

So while this is a rather significant change, I don't actually expect it will have a great deal of an impact on the overall numbers of Tourist Visas issued from either Cambodia or greater Southeast Asia generally.